Charles Nungesser

Flamboyant French Ace of WWI, 43 victories

A fractured skull, two broken legs, a smashed arm, a
multiple-fractured jaw, a scorched foot, and a burned hand - these were
some of the seventeen injuries that Charles Nungesser suffered while
flying for France in the First World War. A dashing, devil-may-care
pilot of legend, he was reputed to have spent more time in the hospital
and in various women's beds than he did in the air. And he spent enough
time in the air to shoot down 43 (45?) German aircraft.

Despite his many injuries, he survived the war, and in 1927
attempted to be the first to fly the Atlantic.

Background

Born in 1892, Charles Eugene Jules Marie Nungesser was an athlete from
an early age: he practiced boxing, swimming, cycling, and soccer. A
thrill-seeker, his youthful ambitions were to be a airplane pilot or a
race-car driver. By the age of sixteen, he had left Paris for Buenos
Aires, where he had the opportunity to race automobiles and to learn to
fly.

With the threat of war in 1914, Nungesser was back in Europe,
volunteering for service in France's Aviation Militaire, but he
had to settle for the cavalry, the Second Hussars. He was decorated
during the Battle of the Marne, for leading a daring attack on a German
staff car, killing (capturing?) five Boche officers and capturing the
vehicle. He leveraged this exploit into a transfer to the air service
in November, 1914.

March, 1915

He was made a pilot in March, 1915 at Avord, and was assigned to
Escadrille Voisin 106. Foreshadowing his later career, he frequently
brought his Voisin (type 3?) biplane back to base riddled with bullet
holes. In April, he recklessly attacked an Albatros; the German carried
a Parabellum machine gun, while Nungesser's observer, Pichon, was only
equipped with a rifle. The Albatros led them over an anti-aircraft
battery; its shrapnel tore into the Voisin and knocked out its engine.
Nungesser glided the plane back inside the French lines and made a
dead-stick, crash landing. Next, he crashed a Morane and put himself in
bed for a month with various broken bones.

At a new airfield at Nancy, he found a brand-new Voisin light bomber
(type 4?), equipped with a Hotchkiss machine gun and took it up without
authorization. When four German planes came over, Nungesser's CO could
not find him; he was busy, in the air, shooting down an Albatros. For
this, he received both eight days' arrest and the Croix de Guerre.
Apparently the women of Nancy also expressed their gratitude to him.

In January, 1916, his leg was injured so badly that he needed a cane
thereafter; evidently this injury did not impair his social nor his
flying activities. Like his body, his aircraft was usually a
patched-up mess, and after any battle, was likely to be worse off. Both
he and his planes were constantly bandaged and re-built. But
internally, he seemed more resilient than many other aces; his nerves
were fine. He never had the shakes and never threw up his breakfast.

May, 1916

He won assignment to a fighter squadron, Escadrille N. (Nieuport) 65.
With black humor he decorated the fuselage of his Nieuport 11 with a
skull, crossed bones, a coffin, and candles. Then he went out and
downed a German observation balloon.
Repeated stunting led to more reprimands and house arrest. But when he
downed an Albatros he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur.

Rumor had it that Nungesser was intimate with Mata Hari, the famous
spy. Aware of her espionage, he amused himself by regaling her with
fanciful tales of a new French "super-plane," powered by eight big new
(also secret) engines. He spent his leaves in Paris, with Colette's
courtesans, in the brothels near the Ritz, and at the bars with
American pilots.

One of Nungesser's drinking buddies was Jean Navarre, another
flamboyant ace. The two of them almost created the image of fighter
pilots as handsome, reckless, hard-living, womanizing rakes. They
disliked military discipline and enjoyed Paris' many attractions as
often as possible. Nungesser was known to show up for a morning patrol
in a tuxedo, perhaps with his woman still on his arm. Once, Nungesser
was driving into Paris, amidst heavy traffic, when he spotted his own
aircraft heading that way. It was Navarre! He had borrowed Nungesser's
airplane; he explained that his own had been shot up and that he "had
forgotten what a woman looked like."

Charles Nungesser ran up his score to ten by mid-June of 1916, an
outstanding number at that time. Flying over Forges late in the month,
he knocked down an L.V.G.

His favorite maneuver was the whip stall. He would get above his
oppenent and dive down sharply, gaining terrific speed. Then, he would
pull out the dive from somewhat below the enemy, and pull up, firing a
burst into the plane's belly. When he could thus deliver a fatal blow,
it worked fine. But if not, he had no choice but to stall at the top of
the zoom; with little airspeed, he was highly exposed. In part this
tactic contributed to his frequent injuries.

December, 1916

He had claimed 20 aerial victories by December, 1916. On the 19th, his
carelessness almost caught up with him. His aircraft had just been
completely overhauled when he took it up for a test flight. Over
Chaulnes Wood, he spotted an L.V.G. and went after it, with one of his
usual whip stalls. But when he reached the top of his arc, he
discovered that there was no Lewis gun on the upper wing. It had been
removed during the repair. His only choice was to threaten to ram the
German's tail. This worked and the L.V.G. was forced down on the French
side. Nungesser had his 21st victory.

Not long after this stunt, he was injured again, and sidelined for
three months.

April, 1917

When he returned to combat flying, he was allowed to free-lance. He
could fly anywhere, with any escadrille, to go after German airplanes.

His black-and-white skull-and-crossbones insignia were well-known on
both sides. One day (or so the story goes) a German plane dropped a
challenge at his aerodrome, "TO MY WORTHY OPPONENT,
MONSIEUR SKULL AND BONES. MEET ME AT FOUR O'CLOCK." Warned that
this was a trap, Nungesser still could not resist. He checked out his
Nieuport carefully, and went up at 2:30. Allegedly he used by fuel and
ammunition strafing a German airfield before he arrived at the
appointed time and place. And of course, when he did, six Hun
Albatroses jumped him. And with daring and astonishing maneuvers, he
shot down two of them, scaring the rest away. (This is the story I
read in one of the secondary sources; to me, it sounds too cinematic to
be true. But of course, I wasn't there. - SS)

On another day a British-marked aircraft attacked him. Thinking this
was a German ruse, he fought back and shot down his assailant. It
turned out to be a novice English flier, who had mistaken Nungesser's
black-and-white skull-and-crossbones for a German insignia. Nungesser
repainted his plane in bold red, white, and blue stripes.

From May to August, 1917, he built up his score of aerial victories
to thirty-nine. His injuries continued; by this time, he was in
constant pain and every kick of the rudder hurt. He had to be carried
in and out of his aircraft.

August, 1917

On August 14, he shot down three enemy kite balloons. A week later five
Fokkers jumped him and injured him seriously. After seventeen injuries
and forty-three (some sources say 45) aerial victories, Charles
Nungesser was finally out of the war.

The Translantic Challenge

Still flamboyant and hard-living, he continued flying after the war,
also speaking and making movies. In 1927, he was attracted by the
Orteig prize, $25,000 offered by a New York hotelier for the first
non-stop flight between New York and Paris. Nungesser partnered with
Captain François Coli; they outfitted a Levasseur P.L.8, named Le
Oiseu Blanc, the White Bird. They took off a week before Lindbergh
and were never heard from again. Nungesser' luck finally ran out; he
had defeated scores of German fighter pilots, but he was brought down
by the vast Atlantic.

Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft: 1914-1980,
by Enzio Angelucci, The Military Press, 1983

Nieuport Aces of World War I, by Norman Franks

Another of the Osprey Aircraft of the Aces series, the second
World War One topic. Forty colorful profile plates. Wonderful original
period photos, including two of Albert Ball that I have never seen
elsewhere. Two lengthy chapters on British and French aces. The book
covers many aces with fewer than 15 kills, so it goes beyond the famous
aces like Ball, Nungesser, Guynemer, and Rickenbacker.

It covers the varieties of the Nieuport (11, 17, 28, etc.) in
detail, down to the machine gun on the Type 11: a Lewis gun, of .303
caliber, carrying 476 rounds in its drum, and was mounted on the upper
wing by a "Foster" mount, so named for the RFC sergeant who invented
it.